A T-Junction

While I carried out a deal of dead heading this morning,

Jackie and Martin continued path clearance, coming together at

the T junction formed by Jackie’s Brick and Martin’s Phantom Paths.

This afternoon I finished reading ‘Monsieur’ by Laurence Durrell, and posted https://derrickjknight.com/2023/06/29/monsieur/

This evening we all dined on tasty roast duck; crisp Yorkshire pudding; roast potatoes, some crisp, some soft and sweet; crunchy carrots, and firm broccoli, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the chianti.

48 comments

  1. I managed to slog through Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. I am glad I didn’t give up, yet I had a difficult time relating to the characters. There was one book – forget which – where he describes a marshy spot that I think was especially well written. It helped me get past the tedious people in the books but realize Durrell was a brilliant writer. At the time, it seemed the time to read this quartet would have been when I was the same age of the characters and had the same narcissistic view of my presence on earth! (One of the questions asked by one person was “How many books in The Alexandria Quartet? LOL! That was in a list of questions about the quartet and the author.)

    On the other hand, Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy I read in one marathon five day read. Same country, different cultural references. In the final page, the blind and dementia-confused elderly spiritual advisor to the family wanders around the streets of Cairo, then asks a Modern Egyptian Man for directions to paradise. The Modern Egyptian Man gives a literal description to some actual place, symbolic of the decline of spirituality in modern Egypt, clearly the lost soul in the picture. I can’t think of another read that tied the whole story together with such finality.

    1. Thank you very much for this, Doug. I still have Clea to return to. Maybe if I now grasp the metafiction idea I will understand it better. Th Cairo Trilogy looks easier.

      1. The Cairo Trilogy is easier because it has no pretensions, just great story telling. The Alexandria Quartett scared me away from reading any further works by Durrell I fear. Another writer who is a slog is Malcolm Lowry. It took several foreign language dictionaries, including a Nahuatl (!) dictionary to get through it, and I found the drunken Firmen tedious in the end.

  2. A lot of hard work in that garden, but when you sit back and look at your finished product – it sure looks good, doesn’t it?!
    I haven’t had duck and roasted potatoes in years – watch out or I’ll be moving in with you!!

  3. I am in awe of the hard work that Jackie puts into the beautiful garden. The enviable results are stunning.

  4. I got a kick out of your friend who said, “I haven’t had duck and roasted potatoes in years – watch out or I’ll be moving in with you!!” I was thinking the same thing!!

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